


Written In The Dust: Footsteps

by gaialux



Series: Written In The Dust [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, M/M, Sibling Incest, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 14:28:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11534136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: Time has passed in the new camp. Daryl is happy to follow leader Shane, but Merle - like always - has to push. When Rick comes back, the dynamic shakes up again. Not that Daryl cares because Merle is missing. And it's all Rick's fault. Follows s1-2.





	1. you better run

**Author's Note:**

> My long-awaited sequel! I hope it lives up to expectations. This one takes place during season 1 and 2 (with some creative liberties!) of TWD. Canon-typical violence within.

Time passed. As it always did. Even at the end of the world, a community gained a sense of repetitive daily tasks. Daryl didn’t mind; he liked it, even. A chance to be some kind of  _ normal _ .

Merle, of course, made it nearly impossible.

“You sure those rations are fair, officer?” Merle asked with a sneer. It was a constant with him, and Daryl knew the officer - Shane, he remembered - treated them equally.

Still, Daryl wouldn’t let anyone give Merle shit.

“Fuck off!” was something he commonly found himself saying. Ready to shove anyone, or even thrust his crossbow in their face.

It was Merle - unpredictable, off-the-hinge Merle - who dragged Daryl aside one day when they were out hunting and told him to knock it off.

“Nobody can know,” he hissed, and Daryl already knew what he meant. He hated it but he understood. What they have was too fucked up, even for the apocalypse.

Still, they could spend some time together in the woods. The best hunters in the group so no one questioned the long expeditions, provided there was some food to prove it.

“This whole group,” Merle said, grunting as he dragged a dead walker from the river. “Is stupid. They’re in the perfect situation to find out everything about these sons-a-bitches but they’re too pussy to try.”

The walker Merle had discovered was a woman. Young, Daryl figured, and not dead too long. Her hair was still long and shiny blonde - but she was definitely gone.

“Like, look--” Merle ripped her jaw open, a line of teeth jutting out. Daryl still had to fight the turn of his stomach. “They’ve got nothin’ more than us to bite.”

He was right. If anything her mouth looked worse than an average human’s: a missing or rotted tooth for every pearly white. Daryl wasn’t exactly sure how they managed to kill so swiftly, but he also didn’t want to find out.

~//~

Supplies were dwindling.

It wouldn’t take Daryl being a genius to figure that out. Even if he and Merle were still pushed to the sidelines.

Daryl hated that it bothered him. He’s been a lone wolf his whole life. Merle or nobody - that was how he worked best. But now...something about how these people worked together. The women caring for the children, the men keeping watch. Didn’t matter that Shane was a cop - Daryl was a decent shot and could help out. So, with Merle asleep one afternoon, Daryl steals back to the main campsite in search of Shane.

“Sure,” was the immediate - and somewhat unexpected response there to meet him. “You and Merle always find your own food out there, I wouldn’t say no to a bit of help.”

He’d asked Shane about hunting. If a deer or even a few dozen squirrels would help out. Merle would hate the idea - anything that helps others but not the two of them. Maybe Merle is more of a lone wolf than even Daryl. Or maybe he’s just the definition of anti-social, selfish asshole. Daryl didn’t know anymore.

“I can go now,” Daryl said, tip of his crossbow digging marks into the dry dirt.

“Don’t you think it’s getting a bit late?”

“Nah,” Daryl shifted. He’d rather be out there. “I work well in the evening.”

Shane shrugged and looked out over the horizon. Daryl briefly followed his gaze before turning back. “Whatever suits, Daryl.”

~//~

“I’m going hunting.”

Daryl hoped Merle would stay asleep so he could feign ignorance when he returned - “I told ya, not my fault you forgot” - but instead he was greeted to Merle rolling over with wide-open eyes.

“And why the fuck are you doing that right now?”

Daryl shrugged. He knew Merle wouldn’t understand, no matter how much he tried to explain. No matter how much he reminded Merle that this group saved them, welcomed them with open arms, and shared their resources with the two of them. Sure, sometimes they were assholes - but you got that everywhere. Daryl was willing to accept it. He just didn’t think Merle was as ready.

“We - they -” he struggled with words. “We all need more food, okay? It’s running low - for everyone.”

Merle sat up. A broken smile cracked across his face. “So you wanna be a part o’ this group? Well alrighty, then, Darleena. I heard ‘em talking about a trip to Atlanta, how about I go help out there?”

“No, you don’t have to--”

“No, no,” Merle cut through. “Needa play my part and help out. You go out and enjoy the hunt, Daryl. Not sure when I’ll see you again.”

Daryl sighed. That was all he could find inside himself to do. He knew Merle would be safe with the others - if he was even telling the truth.

“Whatever, Merle. I’ll be back in the morning.”

He half-heartedly expected a kiss that he didn’t receive.

~//~

If it weren’t for Merle’s reaction, Daryl would love being out in the woods. A chance to relax, alone, far away from their childhood house. The woods here - walkers and all - were much safer.

It didn’t take him long to spot a deer, grazing on a patch of undisturbed grass. It flicked an ear toward him.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath as it bound off.

He could  _ hear  _ Merle’s pissed-off laughter in his ear. “Jesus, Daryl, a  _ deer _ ? You scared off a fucking  _ deer _ ?”

He throw the crossbow to the ground in frustration. “ _ Fuck _ .”

But it didn’t actually matter. Out here. There  _ was  _ no Merle to tell him off. Or anybody else to notice and pick on him for that matter. The sun was still in the sky and the breeze was still light, easy. He could keep going.

Merle be damned.


	2. i stand before a road that will lead into the unknown

One thing that took Daryl a little longer to learn was that there were walker _animals_. He’d tracked this deer for miles, and a no-good son-of-a-bitch deer walker already infected it!

“What do you think? You think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?”

Dale, of course, didn’t like that idea and Daryl was finding it hard to hold his tongue around all these people. Also, where was Merle? Up in the distance he could see the rest that came back - didn’t look like they had many supplies, of course; probably left Merle to do the heavy hauling.

“Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel! Let’s stew ‘em up.”

Shane stopped him. “Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you.”

It was then that Daryl noticed someone new. Wearing a _sheriff's_ outfit of all things. And it wasn’t like Shane had offered it up to a starving, freezing man in need - his outfit was still firmly planted on his body, like the second skin it always appeared to be.

“He dead?” Daryl surprised himself with how deadpan his voice came across. Inside his body was reeling, but maybe something in his mind and heart had accepted Merle’s death already. The drugs, the motorcycle, the constant need to piss people off.

“We’re not sure.”

“He either is or he ain’t!”

“No easy way to see this, so I’ll just say it.”

It was the new guy. Hat, badge, uniform - the whole shebang. Did he loot some zombie corpse? Daryl thought Shane of all people would find some moral opposition to such a thing.

He introduced himself as Rick Grimes. “Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him into a piece of metal. He’s still there.”

Daryl took a step back, his mind and body reeling. “Hold on. Let me process this. You’re saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there?!”

Rick opened his mouth but Daryl didn’t hear the words that follow. He was lunging at him, fists balled and mind seeing searing red. How could anyone be so _stupid_ ? So much of an _asshole_? No way Merle could have deserved that. No way.

Daryl went for his knife -- at least it could have one use today.

He managed to collide a single fist with Rick before he was being grabbed around the neck and held fast.

For a moment -- just a single one -- he’s back home with his Dad. Being yelled at for something he may or may not have done. His whole body froze as the air started shooting from his lungs.

“You best let me go,” he managed to get out. To Dad, or to...Shane? It was Shane who had him, he realised. “Choke hold’s illegal.”

Rick’s voice came out from the crowd. “I’d like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?” He came right up to Daryl’s face. For a second, he saw Merle. “Do you think we can manage that?”

“Yeah,” he got out. It was only once Shane let go that Daryl realised the grip he’d had on him wasn’t particularly hard -- he could still breathe. “Just tell me where Merle is so that I can go get him.”

Rick looked at Lori -- his wife, Daryl only then figured out -- then back at Daryl. “I’m going back.”

“I don’t care,” Daryl said. He shrugged away from the others and got up in Rick’s face. They all thought they could gang up on him and Merle, treat them like redneck trash. Well Daryl wasn’t having it. “You tell me where my brother is.”

“He’s on the top of a grocery store in Atlanta,” Rick said. “Now, there’s a lot of those out there so how’s about you let a few of us find the specific one, huh?”

Daryl glared at him. “I don’t even know you.”

“No,” Rick says slowly. “But you know Lori, Carl, Shane. My family.”

 _I hardly know them, either_.

“When are we leaving?” Daryl asked.

~//~

They were back at the campsite, Merle’s severed hand in his and Daryl’s shared tent. He would come back -- Daryl was sure of it.

_“No! No!” Deep, racking sobs tore through his body. “No! No!”_

_But then...the trail. No body. The dead walkers. He was alive._

There were dead bodies dotted around the campsite from the walker attack last night. The worst they’d seen in a long while.

Andrea was still sitting by her sister, and Daryl watched her. Waiting for her to explode and take them all with her. Rick didn’t give a shit -- talked sweet to her, said she needed time, while Merle was cuffed and abandoned with no help.

Fuck ‘em. He would do the bare minimum around here until somehow helped _him_ out for once. They’d be starving in less than a week.

Daryl and Morales were dragging one of the bodies toward the fire pit when a voice called out.

“We don’t burn them!” It’s Glenn. “We bury them!”

Daryl growled low in his throat. He didn’t see Glenn helping out with any bodies. Him and Morales move the body toward the designated burial holes.

“You reap what you sow,” Daryl muttered, that image of Merle’s bloodied hand singed in his brain.

“You know what?” Morales grunted, running a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Shut up, man.”

“Y’all left my brother for dead,” Daryl said. He dumped the body where it was apparently _supposed_ to go. “You had this coming.”

“A walker got him! A walker got Jim!” The woman’s voice rung out across the campsite.

 _Fuck_.


	3. crawl on our knees for you

They were moving again.

Finding out that everyone is a walker -- or at least soon could be one. Explosions to fix the problem, something Daryl couldn’t understand. Everything came down to destruction, trying to start over, and running from their mistakes.

He was moving further and further from where Merle could be, but he didn’t stop. He followed. Just like a good foot soldier.

Now, though, they followed him. Down the long abandoned highway with rotting corpses of both cars and what were once people. Merle’s bike purred beneath Daryl and the world came down to just that sound all around.

Up ahead, Daryl saw something. He squinted against the sun and made out the spots of shapes in the distance -- cars. Hundreds of them, bumper to bumper down miles and miles of road. He couldn’t even see where they ended.

He tossed a look over his shoulder and nodded at Rick in the cherokee.  _ Follow. Slowly. _ Daryl knew Rick understood.

Daryl snaked a path through the discarded cars in varying state of decay; Fords to Toyotas, a Dodge here and there. Bodies were hanging out of windows, lying on the hot asphalt, or even a few on the grass. What happened here?

There was a spurt from somewhere behind, and Daryl turned just in time to see as smoke began pouring from the RV’s engine.  _ Just great _ . He pulled the bike to a stop.

“Gather what you can, y’all,” Shane called.

_ Yeah, whatever _ .

At this point, Rick had taken over as leader. At least that was what Daryl had noticed -- he could be wrong. Push Shane aside and he fought back like a rabid dog. Or one of the walkers.

Daryl got off the bike and wandered through the carnage. Up close it was even more confronting: the smell of death and the look of tormented faces, frozen how they were.

“Yo, Daryl,” T-Dog called. “Give me a hand with this gas.”

They syphon it out, and Daryl chose to ignore the strange look T-Dog gave him -- the one that asked  _ have you done this before?  _ Because Daryl had. Numerous times. Usually as a lookout for Merle but often enough for himself.

There was a sudden hit of eerie silence. Daryl looked up, toward Rick, and saw him with his gun aimed out ahead. Daryl followed the line of sight. Walkers. Three of them. Making their slow meander directly toward the group.

_ Don’t shoot _ , Daryl wanted to call out, but he trusted Rick’s judgement. No bullets were fired. Rick lowered his gun and Daryl watched as he ran toward Lori, Carl, and Sophia. Under the cars. Daryl gestured to T-Dog and he took off in a sprint. Daryl tried to grab him, but he was too fast. Too far. Daryl dropped behind a car.

At least until T-Dog ran too close to a car. The sound of metal on skin, T-Dog swearing, and Daryl seeing the blood run out at an alarming speed.  _ Fuck, fuck, fuck _ . The walkers took less than half a second to smell out the blood and they began zoning in on T-Dog. Away from the others, but Daryl couldn’t just let T-Dog be eaten.

He took off toward him, darting behind and between cars. Each time he looked to see where T-Dog had gone, T-Dog’s shirt became less white and more red. Splattered dots to thick, dark red pools soaked into the cotton fabric. The walkers were closing in faster.

Daryl was close to him. He could reach out and grab, but that wouldn’t do much. Not right now.  _ Quick, quick _ . Merle would have a solution. Daryl looked around.

The corpses. The smell.

Daryl grabbed T-Dog and hauled him to the ground. He grabbed out one, two corpses from a nearby car and covered the two of them. He could feel T-Dog’s blood soaking into his own clothes.

“Shh,” Daryl whispered. 

The walker’s legs shuffled past them. A pause. Daryl’s heart and breath seemed to stop with it. But then they were moving again. Daryl breathed out and heard T-Dog do the same. Soon, they were gone.

“Sophia!”

Carol’s voice rang out, bouncing off the cars and echoing along the highway.

Daryl shoved the corpses off him and stood, following her voice. He could see Rick. And Sophia. Then they were gone. Hidden amongst the trees and tall grasses of the woods. Daryl dropped back down. Silent. Waiting for the remainder of the walkers to pass.

~//~

They didn’t find Sophia.

Him and Rick tracked the woods high and low, but she kept veering off course. Tracking animals was different, easier -- they were predictable. But people -- especially kids -- could change their mind in a split second. Starting one way then turning 180. Walking in circles upon circles until they walked just a little too off track.

Lost.

Even Rick looked defeated.

Seeing Carol’s face as he and Rick emerged from the woods destroyed him.

“You didn’t find anything?”

“Her trail went cold.”

Daryl didn’t know what to say. “Hunting in the dark’s no good,” is all that came out.

It didn’t seem to comfort her.


	4. run for your children, your sisters and brothers

Merle’s personal pharmacy.

Daryl knew it would come in handy sooner or later.

“Why’d you wait ‘til now to say anything?” He asked T-Dog as he threw the doxycycline at him.

Merle had given him a dose after a particularly nasty hunting wound. Cleared the heat in his arm right up. The meth and oxycodone had been missing -- and Daryl knew there was no way Merle would have ditched them. He’d taken them. Either for his hand or because he was thinking straight enough to hold onto his addiction.

It was strangely the smallest bit comforting.

~//~ 

It looked just like your ordinary, typical, run-of-the-mill Georgia farm. The paddocks like those that surrounded Daryl’s childhood home. The real difference was the farmhouse -- tall, majestic, well cared for. A stark contrast to the dilapidated homesteads that joined the farms he was used to.

Everyone seemed to settle quickly. Too quickly. Like they were all just looking for something to _call_ home and would jump on the first chance that appeared.

Daryl wasn’t that stupid. He couldn’t just look around and decide paradise was wherever they had four walls and a roof. He’d had that -- he still ran to the woods. And, besides, Sophia was missing. They couldn’t lay down and relax until she was safe and sound.

Even if they all agreed to do what needed to be done if it came to that.

He let Rick know he was heading out, because that was the polite thing to do, wasn’t it? He always wished Merle would let him know if he was leaving the house -- how long for, where to.

“You don’t owe us anything,” Rick said, a steady gaze that bore into Daryl’s eyes and made him feel like shivering. Rick had a way of looking both through and into him.

“My other plans fell through,” Daryl said.

He needed to do this alone.

To go back to his roots, remember everything Merle had taught him. A snapped twig, a piece of twine, a half-hidden footprint. All of these were signs that someone had come this way, and missing even one could veer him completely off track.

He found his way to a cabin, dilapidated but still standing. The door opened easily -- that gave Daryl some idea that, maybe, someone had come by recently. He scoured the room, first with his gun out, then with a keen eye for details. A can of sardines, opened and recently eaten. He swung open the door to a closest. No human -- or walker -- inside, but a makeshift bed. Something only a small child could fit in.

Sophia had come this way. Daryl was sure of it. But she was gone now, just like the sun outside that was fast setting. He’d promised Rick he would be back by dark and, besides, tracking in the dark was no good. He would miss something.

“Sophia!”

Nothing. His voice picked up and travelled by the wind with no return call.

Outside, on the grass, he sees two white roses. Cherokee roses. He remembered, once, his father bringing them to his mother. Placing two in an empty beer can. That night she had told Daryl the story of the Cherokee rose.

He picked one and placed it carefully in his pocket.

~//~

It seemed like some kind of twisted fate when he found the beer bottle by a fire pit. He hoped the bottle signified something more than his father’s makeshift vase of a can did -- something more important.

~//~ 

Daryl stepped inside the RV. It was cleaned up, bright. The curtains thrown open and a soft lantern lit in the shadowed corner. A flowered linen was even placed on the daybed. It was there he found Carol sitting.

“I cleaned up,” Carol said. “Wanted it to be nice for her.”

Daryl looked around, taking it in again. “For a second I thought I was in the wrong place.”

He placed the Cherokee rose on a nearby clear surface. Carol raised her eyebrows.

“A flower?

“It’s a Cherokee rose,” Daryl said. He leant against the RV door. “The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the trail of tears the Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much ‘cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation. A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they, uh, said a prayer. Asked for a sign to uplift the mothers’ spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day, this rose started to grow right where the mothers’ tears fell.”

Daryl dropped his gaze from Carol to the rose.

“I’m not fool enough to think there’s any flowers blooming for my brother. But I believe this one bloomed for your little girl.”

“That’s beautiful,” Carol said. Daryl could see the tears welling in her eyes and looked away.

“I hoped you’d like it,” he said, then left. Back out into the almost set sun and to his own makeshift campsite.

He wanted to believe Merle was out there, alive and well. Even if a rose wouldn’t bloom for him, there had been two. And Merle was a tough son of a bitch -- he could survive even without help or faith.

What confused Daryl more than anything was what he felt towards Carol. The way he wanted to be near her, the way his eyes always searched for hers.

The closest he’d felt to that is what he felt for Merle.

And that scared him.


	5. the pathway to your heart

Sophia was still missing, and everybody besides Carol and  _ maybe  _ Rick seemed happy enough to just sit tight on the farm. Even with T-Dog and Dale standing her with him now, Daryl could tell they were itching to go back to some sense of normality.

“I’m gonna borrow a horse, head up to the ridge right here.” He pointed up toward where he found the cabin. “Take a bird’s-eye view of the whole grid. If she’s up there, I’ll spot her.”

T-Dog didn’t even try to hide his scoff. “Good idea. Maybe you’ll see your Chupacabra up there too.”

“Chupacabra?” Rick asked.

“You never heard this?” Dale asked. “Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a Chupacabra.”

_ I did. It was real. _

Nearby, Jimmy scoffed.

“What are you braying at, jackass?” Daryl bit back.

Rick stepped forward, hiding Jimmy and getting a little too close for Daryl’s liking. “So, you believe in a blood-sucking dog?”

_ Yes.  _ “Do you believe dead people walking around?”

That seemed to shut them up. At least for now -- Daryl knew once he was gone he’d be the butt off all jokes and rumours. Who cared. He knew what he’d saw.

He grabbed one of the horses from the stable, the brown one he’d seen one of Hershel’s daughters riding yesterday. She looked okay. Fit enough to take him where he needed to go.

Daryl tacked her up with the soft, fancy leather this farm had. Not the stiff stuff he’d used on horses back home -- if he was lucky enough to have a saddle or bridle, that is. Usually it was bareback, maybe with a halter for guidance. This would make for a smoother ride. It was the little things.

He set out into the woods, following a vague path that could have been carved by wildlife or livestock or people or...yes, walkers. Flattened, brown grass and snapped twigs led the way. It was steep, but manageable. The horse slowing as needed and picking her legs up high.

“Good girl,” Daryl murmured, and realised he hadn’t even found out her name. “You remind me a bit of my old friend’s horse -- Blaze. You like that?”

She pricked up her ears and Daryl decided she liked it.

“Good girl, Blaze. Keep going up.”

Daryl took in the whole area as the slowly descended up. It was a dark canopy of trees, but enough light filtered through to make the little things visible. To make a potential  _ girl  _ visible -- but Daryl was still hoping she would come out on her own accord, hungry and tired, but alive.

It was then that he spotted, way down below in a bubbling creek, something snagged by reeds. He stopped Blaze and dismounted, sliding down the steep embankment.

What he picked up was a doll. Water-logged and tattered, but he recognised it as Sophia’s. She was always carrying the thing. He looked around but saw nothing else.

“Sophia!”

Silence.

“Sophia!”

He gripped the doll in his hand and made his way back up the bank. She’d want this back when he found her.

Blaze was waiting patiently for him, head dropped and nibbling on some grass. He re-mounted and squeezed her into action. There was plenty of daylight left but Daryl knew how fleeting it really could be. And the more time that passed, the further Sophia could be. He needed to reach that ridge soon.

Up ahead, Daryl spotted a squirrel. It was an easy point, fire, and grab. He didn’t need all the fancy farmhouse food they kept offering him -- he and Merle survived fine on what they could find out here.

Daryl continued on deeper into the woods, losing the makeshift track and making do with what seemed least rough. The trees and brush grew thicker, darker, and their pace slowed almost to a crawl as they pushed through.

“Almost there,” Daryl murmured, even if he wasn’t totally sure himself.

They come out into a slightly clearer area, with fallen leaves instead of just brush and twigs. Daryl urged Blaze to pick up the pace -- they could make more ground here.

Suddenly, Daryl felt himself lurching sideways. He gripped the reins but it was too late. He saw the ground coming for him a millisecond before he hit it, then the sky, then the ground again. Rolling down the hill he’d just climbed up until cold, hard, and wet covered his back. A moment later it was joined with a searing, white-hot pain in his side.

_ Fuckfuckfuck. _

He dragged himself from the water, agonising steps being held back by the soaking wet clothes. Every movement made his side sting more and more, until black spots were dancing in his peripheral vision.  _ Hold on. Keep moving. _

Daryl got himself up on drier land, the rocks still slippery from the constantly moving current. An arrow in the side wasn’t completely new; these things happened. He grabbed out his knife and cut the sleeves from his shirt, tied them together, and placed one below and one above the arrow. Hissing out in pain all the while. At least now it couldn’t move, couldn’t puncture anything vital. Daryl breathed out hard and tried to push the dancing black lights away.

Secured, he looked up.

_ Shit. _

He couldn’t even  _ see  _ where the ridge began, just that it was high up above thick trees and jagged rocks. The no good son of a bitch horse was nowhere in sight.

There was a stick in front of him, and Daryl grabbed it. Pulling himself further from the water onto the slippery rocks beneath.

A sound.

Daryl whirled his head around. There, in the bushes. Something rustling. Moving. Daryl reached for his crossbow.  _ What?  _ He couldn’t find it. Fuck -- it must have fallen into the river with him.

Daryl hoisted himself back into the water, wading chest-deep. This was where he had fallen. At least he thought so. It was hard to tell. He fished out with the stick, dragging the riverbed, until it hooked.  _ Yes _ . He pulled the crossbow out and placed it in its rightful place on his back.

The movement in the bushes had stopped.


	6. why you still standing here?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains quotes heavily pulled directly from TWD.

He must have fallen. Again. Tree branches swaying above him and then, murky but slowly growing clearer...Merle?

“Why don’t you pull that arrow out, dummy?” Merle asked, standing right over Daryl. “You could bind your wound better.”

“Merle?” Daryl felt his lips turn upward into a smile as he made out the hazy image of his brother through hooded, gritty eyes. He always knew Merle would come back.

“What’s going on here? You taking a siesta or something?”

Daryl fought to keep his eyes open, but he  _ had  _ to; he couldn’t let Merle disappear again.

“A shitty day, bro,” Daryl said.

“Like me to get you a pillow? Maybe rub your feet?”

“Screw you,” he said, but the smile was even wider and the pain in his side had disappeared now that Merle was here.

“Uh-huh,” Merle said, leaning closer. Daryl wanted to hug him. Or kiss him. Or something. But he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to do in this new world. “You’re the one screwed from the looks of it. All of them years I spent trying to make a man of you, this is what I get? Look at you. Lying in the dirt like a used rubber. You’re gonna die out here, brother. And for what?”

“A girl,” Daryl said, swallowing hard. He could taste dirt in his mouth, his throat. “They lost a little girl.”

“So you got a thing for little girls now?”

“Shut up.”

Daryl felt his eyes being pulled to a close against his own volition.  _ No _ .  _ No _ . Not when Merle was finally back. Safe. Here.

“Easy, little brother,” Merle was saying. Daryl felt a hand on his face and it pulled him to. “Not gonna pass out on me without a little fun, are you?”

Merle was looking down at him, bright blue eyes sparkling. Daryl followed his gaze and saw the tent already forming in his brother’s pants. He still didn’t know if he was allowed to kiss -- or even touch.

“C’mon, Daryl,” Merle said. His hand slowly trailed from Daryl’s cheek, to his chest, to his pants. Even despite the arrow and the dirt and the blood he could taste on his lips, Daryl found himself keening to Merle’s touch. “Yeah. Just what I thought.”

Merle had Daryl’s pants around his knees in the space of a blink. His hand bringing Daryl to full hardness.

“Well look at you, Darleena,” Merle said with his shit-eating grin proudly on his face. “Always ready, even after a fall.”

_ Shut up _ , Daryl wanted to say. But, more than that, he didn’t want to risk ruin...this. Whatever  _ this  _ was about to become.

Merle was inside him. Somehow. No preparation, no pain. Just the sensation of Merle’s dick filling him up and being  _ home _ . This was  _ home _ , which was so fucked up it somehow made things normal.

Merle leaned down and whispered against Daryl’s ear. “I noticed you ain’t looking for old Merle no more.”

_ No _ . “Tried like hell to find you.”

Daryl remembered finding the hand, the way it made his heart tear into pieces and his body seem to shut down entirely. It was only after he  _ knew  _ Merle was still alive that he could breathe again.  _ Live  _ again.

“Like hell you did,” Merle said. “You split, man. Lit out first chance you got.”

“ _ You _ lit out,” Daryl said. “All you had to do was wait. We went back for you. Rick and I, we did right by you.”

It’s only after he said the name that Daryl knew he should have kept mom. Merle’s thrusts grew stronger, harsher. He was pushing Daryl along the rough soil and Daryl could feel things catching onto his back.

“This the same Rick that cuffed me to the rooftop in the first place?” Merle bit down on Daryl’s shoulder. Hard. Daryl clenched his jaw to keep from crying out. “Forced me to cut off my own hand? This him we’re talking about here? You his bitch now?”

Merle looked up at him after he said those words. Eyes wide, questioning.

“I ain’t nobody’s bitch.”

Merle fucked him harder. Hands braced on either side of Daryl’s head, his arm muscles rippling. Daryl hated how much it turned him on. How hard he was. How he never wanted Merle to stop, or go away, or disconnect from him ever again.

“I got a little news for you,” Merle said. His breath was only becoming the slightest bit laborious. Daryl never wanted this to end. “They ain’t your kin. Your blood. Ain’t nobody ever gonna care about you except me, little brother.”

Daryl didn’t know what Merle was playing at -- if it was anger at being left or jealousy of Daryl’s assimilation that led him to say what he was.  _ I’d leave them _ . And he would. If Merle wanted to guide Daryl into the woods and survive out there with him, Daryl would follow.

“A good little soldier,” Merle said with a savage twinkle in his eye.

Had Daryl been talking out loud? He didn’t think so. Keep your mouth shut -- rule number one of their childhood. Merle thrust into him faster, turning more erratic, and that’s when Daryl noticed.

Merle’s hand.  _ Both  _ Merle’s hands. Spread out on either side of Daryl’s head. Dirty and weathered like always, but firmly attached.

_ You’re not real. _

Merle grinned wider at him and thrust in once more, deep. He took his hand -- the one that’s in Glenn’s bag -- and brought Daryl to orgasm. Writhing against the dirt and sticks and stones.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, Merle was gone and Daryl was left. Alone. In the dirt with an arrow sticking from his side.

~//~

If Merle was fake -- and Daryle knew he  _ was _ \-- then why would Daryl think about that? Why would he want sex with something that wasn’t even real? With his  _ brother _ ? Always Merle. Twisted and joined in his chest, always part of him but also always distant.

_ Merle. Merle. Merle. _

Daryl’s heart beat to the name.

~//~

He kicked off a walker. Ripped the arrow from his side and shoved it in another. There was no Merle. No Sophia. No Rick out looking for him. All alone with corpses floating in the river.

He tore off their ears, threaded them, and laid it over his neck.

Survival.

Alone.

~//~

“What’s the matter, Darleena? That all you got in you? Throw away that purse and climb!”

Daryl could see the edge of the ridge. One hand in front of the other, dragging his feet along. His side stung with every action but he kept moving.

“I’m on your side.”

“Yeah?” Daryl got out. Talking to a fake brother. “Since when?”

“Hell, since the day you were born, baby brother. Somebody had to look after your worthless ass.”

He shoved his foot into the hard dirt and climbed a few more inches.

“You never took care of me,” Daryl said. “You talk a big game but you was never there. Hell, you ain’t here now. Guess some things never change.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what.” Merle leant down over the ridge. If he extended his hand, Daryl might have been able to reach it. “I’m as real as your Chupacabra.”

~//~

He could see the farm. Thick, green pastures and the RV off in the distance. T-Dog, Glenn, and Rick were coming toward him. Good, about time someone tried to help. Even if he didn’t have Sophia.

Each step seemed to rip the wound in his side longer and deeper. When he reached down, there was tacky blood. His makeshift bandage hadn’t lasted the trek, not that he’d had any faith it would.

Rick was there. Close to him. His gun lifted.

“That’s the third time you’ve pointed that thing at my head,” he said, still dragging himself along. His voice was laboured, painful with every syllable. “You gonna pull the trigger or what?”

He saw Rick lower it. But then, a second later, searing pain engulfed him -- and this time it wasn’t from the arrow wound. He fell to his knees.

“No!”

“I was kidding,” Daryl murmured, and the world turned black.

~//~

“How are you feeling?”

Daryl quickly pulled the covers up higher around him and shifted lower in the bed. It was Carol.

“About as good as I look,” he said.

“I brought you some dinner.” He heard a tray being placed down and looked over. “You must be starving.”

Carol took a step closer to him before leaning down and pressing a kiss below the bandage on his head. His whole body turned to ice.

“Watch out, I got stitches.”

He didn’t know why he said that. Or why he pulled away. Was it for Merle? This sick and twisted thing inside him that felt he had to stay  _ loyal?  _ Carol would think he was a freak.

“You need to know something.”

He looked back at her, heart beating fast.

“You did more for my little girl than her own daddy did in his whole life.”

Turning away again, he said, “I didn’t do anything Rick or Shane wouldn’t have done.”

“I know,” Carol said. “You’re every bit as good as them. Every bit.”

With that, she left.

Daryl rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He had no appetite, just a churning ball in his stomach that was growing and growing. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what was going on. Was Merle right? That they would chew him up and spit him out the second things got rough?

Yeah, Daryl figured, chances are they would.


End file.
